Ok, photographers of all levels have been doing variations of this theme for as long as I can remember, so this is just a reminder for anyone less antique than me. Club Snap furum user Henavs has made this nice little tutorial, complete with a with/without bounce card shot:

"The more reflective the surface, the less loss of light. I use glossy photo paper on this, it can be improved with mirror (as dereth mentioned below) or gold/silver reflector. You can make the bounce card any size you want & keep the card in your pocket or bag. For me, I just keep it small & stick it on top of the flash when not in use, easier to store."

Well, you can't really build a whole camera with lollipop sticks, so Maxim had to use some duct tape, a bit of cardboard, and a Polaroid film back. Then, there's the lens:

"So thought I would give building a camera out of lollipop sticks a go, Went well! The back is a polaroid film holder for type 100 film so I used some Fuji-FP 100C I had lying about (which is an amazing film please go buy some now so they keep making it!) the bellows are just thick card and duct tape and the lens is off one of those old folding cameras you see loads in charity shops etc.They are normally really cheap and the lenses are in shutters which makes . . . read more

Everything in this article, besides the Fuji menu options of course, apply to every other camera body, be it a mirrrorless, or a Dslr, so its time to brush up (heh) on the cleaning skills:

"You can run a test to check whether dust has already settled on your sensor. Take an exposure of a blue or white sky, a bright wall, or a white piece of paper with a fully dimmed lens (= the highest f-stop possible). It’s best to use the camera’s automatic exposure bracketing feature (DRIVE button > AE BKT) and to manually set the lens to be out of focus—for the sky, set the focus for a short-range shot, and for a piece of paper, set the focus to infinity. If you then transfer your images to . . . read more

"From Paper To RingFlash In Few Easy Steps. If you're into ring-flashes, this should be one of the most fun projects ever. It mixes together some paper, glue, scissors and, of course a strobe to print and then fold your ring flash. The original template is pure generosity created by Diego Billi, and brought to web perfection by the good guys at Sylights. (Sylights is a supercool web2.0 way of sharing lighting diagrams).

I don't think this is portable in the sense of folding it and putting it in a bag, but those hi-tech material ultra light Dollies costs anything upstream of $350.

"The video dolly, allows the camera to be moved laterally in a smooth motion. Currently the options are between cheap dollies that do not deliver and high end dollies that cost an arm and a leg. This is the gap that this tutorial fills.The video dolly consists of two parts: a track and a carriage. My design came from seeing a photo of the underside of a similar carriage that was built for a totally different use. The rest of it resulted after building and rebuilding it in my head and on paper until the kinks were worked out.. . . read more

Note: Ming Thein will give the camera away to one of his readers, as he explains: "Note: We’re still giving this camera away. Tomorrow, I’m going to explain how – there will of course be a photographic competition involved!"

"So how would I describe the tonal characteristics of this camera? In a nutshell, it produces B&Ws that are warm and rounded, if there’s such a thing. The sharpness is there but it’s not biting; the tones are rich and deep. If used with better glass, I think it would really sing – especially for portraiture. Skin looks baby-soft. Don’t use it in colour, it looks horrible due to pollution of the blue and red channels by UV and IR respectively. However, note that with a visible blocking filter over the lens, you could shoot either IR or UV without issue. The camera also gains some sensitivity – about 1-1.5. . . read more

Note: Be less that extremelly carefull and this will turn into a "how to destroy a perfectly working Dslr with glue' essay:

"As both a techie and a photographer I love pushing the envelope of what is possible in digital photography. One of the most interesting intersections of these the interests has been the observation that images don’t need to be limited to visible light. Several years ago I had a Nikon D70 converted to be sensitive to infrared — allowing me to capture some. . . read more

This, should be easy to do, user "abandoned-not-forgotten" has included detailed descriptions and pics for each step:

"This is a video I made using my homemade panning time-lapse device from a mechanical water timer. I got the idea from something I stumbled upon online, but can't for the life of me find the article or video. Credit goes out to whomever posted the idea on the internet. . . read more

Damiens extensive article (with lots of fake vs real pics) and the links he shares are a great aid for those questioning whether they got the real deal or the dupe stuff:

"Unfortunately most of you will read this page after buying counterfeited CF cards, but hopefully my story will help you find the truth about what you bought. And maybe even prevent you from clicking the wrong "buy now!" button. The first thing to realize is that no one is safe. Obviously buying from Ebay is not the brightest idea, but major (online) stores are . . . read more

"My first tip for traveling photographers is to protect your gear from theft. There are theives in every part of the world, not just developing countries. They know how much your pretty camera can fetch for on a black market, and they will risk a lot to steal your gear. When traveling, I make it a point to make my camera look crappy and old. I cover it with duct tape, carry it in a normal, dirty backpack, and make sure all recognizable logos such as “Canon” or “Phase One” are hidden. A nice looking camera case is also a red flag. I prefer typical “consumer” travel packs or using older weathered bags that have seen better days. . . . read more

Forget about Ebay and Craiglist, this is the place for good deal, mostly on Nikon Gear, some serviceable, some not, and hopefully not too many radioactive specimens. Other notable lenses we spotted are a couple of Mamiyas, and some Canon primes. And don't forget to check out their camera section too. . . . read more

"Zone focusing is pre-focusing your camera to a certain distance away, say 10 feet, guessing the DOF that you will have at that distance with the settings you are using, and then photographing subjects as they enter that range, and hopefully as close as possible to the actual focus distance on the camera."

"Another observation that I have after a number of years working with cameras and lenses, is that camera calibration only works reliably well at small adjustments, when it is not extreme. A while ago, one of our readers asked me “how come we only get -20 to +20 for AF Fine Tune, why doesn’t Nikon allow much bigger values like -50 to +50?”. It was an interesting question that I could not answer at the time, because I did not have a camera/lens combination that required extreme calibration values. While testing various Nikon DSLRs during the last few years, I came across a couple of camera bodies and lenses that had severe back/front focus issues, where something like -20 adjustment had to be dialed during the calibration . . . read more

"Though many people might tell you to start with the camera, Angel doesn’t think it’s as critical as it once was. “We used to buy a camera—a Hasselblad body or a Nikon F—and slowly add lenses and that was our system. Now the camera is the most disposable part of your gear. Camera life expectancy is 12 to 18 months and they’re affordable enough that you can swap bodies and continue using everything else.”. . . read more

Hot on the heels of the Lumix GF2 hacking, its already time for its successor to receive the same treatment. Let's hope the similarities between the GF2 and GF3 will assist the rapid development of the project.

Thanks to the committed effort by Vitaliy Kiselev and his army of supporters and beta testers, owners of the Lumix GF2 can now for the first time get a taste of what their camera can achieve with the PTool firmware manipulation tool, such as unlocked and added bit rates, codecs, language, and numerous tweaks. . . . read more

"Portable light box comes in handy for most product photography work. We did feature a cardboard light tent way back, but it was not collapsible. How can we say no to collapsible. With collapsibility in mind Kumaran Alagesan went and made a tent for $5.

Below are the stuff that I picked up at Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree. . . . read more

"I’d like to explain the more finite details about the N8/EF adapter that I completely ignored in the video, the first thing being how I conceived this in the first place. Simply, my 2” nosepiece adapter will not fit on the Takahashi, but a wide mount Canon EF t ring will - so an EF lens adapter was . . . read more

"In summary, when the size of aperture is large (a small F-number like f/2.8), light rays reach dust particles that are sitting on the sensor filter from different angles. Remember, although I refer to this as “sensor dust”, dust actually never touches the sensor, because there is a thick filter . . . read more